THE GRAPPLER RULES OF LIFTING

Use Ground-Based, Multiple-Joint Exercises.  Simply stated, this means you perform the majority of your exercises with your feet on the ground using strength exercises that recruit more than one muscle.  Squats, deadlifts, lunge variations, chest presses, shoulder presses and Olympic lifts are just a few examples of exercises, which call upon multiple muscles simultaneously.

While single-joint exercises such as leg extensions, triceps pushdowns/extensions and bicep/hammer curls have a place in our strength programs, those exercises aren’t nearly as effective in training for the type of brute strength we want to develop with our wrestlers.

Use Free Weights, Not Machines.  We use free weights almost exclusively because they require the wrestler to develop the all-important stabilizer muscles, which machines don’t require.  When you train with machines, you essentially provide a force in order to lift the weight, but unfortunately, the machine, not the lifter, provides the stability because the movement pattern is already predetermined by the machine.

When using free weights, the lifter must control the positioning of the bar or dumbbell as well as proper body alignment.  In order to achieve a perfect movement pattern, the lifter must stay “tight” and control the resistance from start to finish.  The end result – you strengthen the all-important stabilizer muscles.

Use Olympic Lifts to develop power and explosiveness.  Yes, we know coaches who insist there’s no value to Olympic lifting, unless of course, you’re competing in Olympic lifting.  Yet, from years in the trenches and watching powerful, explosive athletes from a variety of sports, we believe in and teach the Olympic lifts to all of our athletes.  We use a variety of cleans, snatches and jerks to develop power and explosiveness in our wrestlers. 

A lot of coaches whom we’ve spoken with stay away from the Olympic lifts primarily because they feel that these lifts take too much time to teach and learn correctly or they feel that the injury-potential is too great.  There is some truth to that belief; the lifts do have a longer learning curve than strength exercises. 

However, there are some simple progressions that we introduce to all of our young wrestlers using only a broom stick or light PVC pipe.  Our young wrestlers practice these progressions during every workout between their strength exercises.  In a relatively short period of time, our kids have perfected great technique on their Olympic lifts.  We also emphasize doing these lifts with dumbbells and kettelbells as well as the traditional Olympic straight bar.

Build “Core Strength”.  Based upon our training experience with young athletes, virtually all of them need improvement with “core strength”.  We define core as not just the abdominals, but also the obliques, lower back, hips and pelvis. 

Utilize numerous exercises that attack and strengthen all areas of the core.  We will always balance the mid and upper abdominal wall with lower abdominal, oblique and lower back exercises.  Our core strengthening program includes numerous standing exercises such as power ball wall throws from various stances, sledgehammer tire hits, tornado ball drills against a wall or free-standing, olympic bar “rainbows”, numerous variations of cable chops and plate woodchoppers.

 Grappler core strength utilizes a lot of variation to keep the workouts fun and challenging while attacking the core from multiple angles.  Our wrestlers perform numerous swiss ball exercises, plank variations, back extension variations, power ball or plate rotational exercises, reverse hyperextensions, V-Ups, hanging leg raises and slide board core exercises.

Grip, Grip, Grip.  Wrestling is a sport requiring great static strength in order to control your opponent.  You can have great upper and lower body strength but you need to develop vice-like gripping strength to win matches.  Being able to hold your opponent for an extended period of time without weakening your grip demands a lot of grip training.

The entire “Ultimate Grappler Strength Workouts” is essentially a gripping workout to build better static strength.  Towel pull-ups, thick handle pull-ups/thick handle lat pulldowns, standing thick rope/handle sled back rows, recline rope rows/pulls, rock ring pull-ups, farmer walks, kettlebell exercises, tug-of-war games, rope climbs and stick wrestling are utilized consistently by our training staff.

Thick Handles, Thick Ropes, Thick Bars.  OK, so we may be getting a little redundant by re-emphasizing our previous training principle, but we don’t think it can be overstated!  In order to control and “shut-down” opponents, you must develop world-class gripping strength and nothing builds this world-class grip strength better than constantly using thick bars, thick handles and thick ropes.  The thicker, the better!

When you perform strength exercises with thick bars, thick handles or thick ropes, you’re forced to grip much, much tighter than with traditional size bars.   Our high school wrestlers have done extremely well in state and sectional competition because we always utilize the thickest handles and bars possible when strength training.

Strongman Training Builds “Shut-Down Strength”.  Examine how the strongest dudes in the world train and you’ll know why Ultimate Grapplers can count on performing strongman exercises during their workouts.  Strongman training exemplifies our first training principle of “Ground-Based, Multiple-Joint Exercises”. 

Try flipping a large tire and see how much effort you must exert in order to lift, balance and then flip over the tire.  If you’ve ever watched and closely studied tire-flipping, you’ll notice that the lifter is calling upon the same muscles utilized when performing the deadlift, power clean, front squat and standing chest and shoulder presses in one movement.  Tire flipping also requires tremendous core strength to properly execute the flip. 

Ultimate Grapplers also enjoy using stones, sandbags, logs, leg sleds, kegs filled with water, car pushing and towing and wheelbarrow walks.  Your wrestlers will never be out-muscled by any opponent when you have them integrating strongman training into their workouts.  Equally as important, strongman exercises are favorites of school-age athletes.  You should never discount the importance of keeping the workouts fun and entertaining.  All of our athletes are incredibly intense and bust their butts in our workouts, but we always try and keep the workouts unique.

Front Squats and Zerchers:  You’ve probably never heard of Zercher, but he really understood strength training.  Anytime you place a bar, sandbag or other object in front of your body and then squat or lunge, you develop not only leg/hip strength but all-important core strength. 

Front squats (the bar is placed on the front of your shoulders with your elbows pointing straight ahead) require the lifter to maintain a more upright posture than on the traditional back squat.  Zercher lunges and Zercher squats demand the same upright posture and are a must in your wrestling strength training program.

Bring Balance to your Body.  Check-out your local gym and you’ll find a lot of athletes focusing far too much time on the front-side muscles; what we like to refer to as the “show muscles”.  They’re spend a lot of time training chest, biceps and shoulders while ignoring the back-side muscles; what we like to refer to as the “go muscles” because sport speed and power are generated from the posterior or back-side muscles. 

Make sure all of your wrestlers spend an equal amount of time training the lats, real delts, traps, lower back, hamstrings and glutes.  Most of the earlier training principles will take care of this rule due to the type of lifting required by the Ultimate Grappler Workouts.

Nutrition: You Are What You Eat.  The best strength training in the world is meaningless without a proper nutritional plan that you consistently follow year-round.  As former competitive bodybuilders, we lived proper nutrition for a number of years so we know first-hand the importance of this principle.  Eating well is not as difficult as most people make it!  

You’ll be very surprised how much food you actually get to eat throughout the day without the worry of unwanted weight-gain.  Equally important, you won’t sacrifice hard-earned muscle like so many wrestlers are apt to experience on strict low-caloric diets.  Diets cost you valuable muscle and that’s going to cost you matches in the long-term! 

Learn to eat a balance of high-quality proteins, fibrous carbohydrates (veggies), complex carbohydrates (brown rice, sweet potatoes, whole wheat pasta, oatmeal) and good fat (flaxseed, olive oil, Omega-3’s) for 4-6 small meals spaced evenly throughout the day.  You’ll never feel hungry and you’ll be amazed at how lean you become while maintaining your strength.  You’ll be able to maintain much better energy levels for your practices and matches.

Stay Hydrated: Water, Water, Water.  Your muscles are 70% water so why wouldn’t you feed them throughout the day.  Bodybuilders will tell you from first-hand experience that water is essentially a “fat-burner”, helping to eliminate unwanted toxins and enhancing metabolism.  You should strive to drink at least half your body weight in fluid ounces of water everyday, spacing your consumption evenly throughout the day in the same manner you’ll space your meals.

Strength Train With An Eccentric Focus.  The best gains in strength occur when we demand good form in order to most effectively isolate the muscles being worked.  We like to use the expression, “You need your mind on the muscle”.  Simply stated, if you can’t feel the muscle being trained then you need to focus on better form. 

It’s all about feeling the muscle being trained!  Younger, inexperienced lifters have a tendency to lower the weight far too quickly.  Strength gains are based upon controlling the weight when it’s being lowered (eccentric phase) as much as when the weight is being raised.

Throughout the year, we’ll be bringing you awesome interviews with top-name collegiate and high school coaches, well-known strength and conditioning professionals, top MMA pros, sport psychology experts, sport nutritionists, chiropractors, physical therapists and the most recent exercise science research related to sport performance.  You’ll have access to the very best wrestling-specific education anywhere in the world with GrapplerStrength.com.  We welcome you to our growing family of subscribers and welcome your comments and requests.